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little anxieties and budding hopes a radiance from afar, and from their mysterious impulses and fairy imaginings, extracts a noble proof of the origin and the destiny of man.

Sublime as this pros pect appears, when it first blazes on the eye, we may venture to assert that at least with the great mass of our species, its objects are chiefly ideal. And even those whom the majestic verse and the exalted enthusiasm of the poet have beguiled into a belief of their truth, must confess that they were wholly unacquainted with these supposed facts in the history of their moral being, which now seem to harmonise with all the delicious remembrances of early affection. Mr. W. has thrown the noon-tide majesty of his soul over the blushing dawn of his fancy, as he has shed the lustre and the bloom of his genius on the universe he surveys. In the holiness of his imagination all appears bright, and solemn, and serene; and his theories may rather be regarded as prophetic of what we may be in a loftier stage of being, than as descriptive of what we are on earth. No man of feeling ever perused his nobler poems for the first time, without finding that he breathed in a purer and more elevated region of poetical delight, than any which he had before explored. To feel, for the first time, a communion with his mind, is to discover loftier faculties in our own. He seems like a being scarcely of this world-like a mind exhibited before its time, to shew to what an eminence our nature is capable of attaining or like a star dwelling apart, which not only sheds around the most pure and blessed influences, but precedes the dawn of brighter days on the spheres with which it is connected.

Feebly as we have shadowed out the singular excellences by which living poets are distinguished, we hope that we have been able to convince the reader that the spirit of inspiration is not yet departed. We have indeed to regret that the necessary limitation of our space has compelled us to leave several meritorious writers unnoticed--most of whom, indeed, by the unobtrusive quality of their beauties, and by the harmony of all the parts of their produc tions, afford but little room for speculation or for critical enquiry. We might indeed linger, with fond delay, on the chaste elegance and mellifluous sweetness of Rogers-the soothing sadness of Bowles-the sparkling fancy, the domestic heartiness, and the generous enthusiasm of Hunt--and the mild and elevated piety, the far-looking hopes, the pensive tenderness, and the holy sorrow of Montgomery. But we feel that the object of our investigations is answered that we may safely indulge in a lofty tone of congratulation, and that the reader has but to become truly acquainted with the great poet whose character we last endeavoured faintly to delineate, in order to confess that the present age is not dim in

imaginative lustre, but that even amidst the increasing cultivation of society, and after the removal of that barbarism, so essential in the opinion of some to the freedom and originality of genius, the natural voice of our old and exquisite poetry is again reviving.

Nor can we participate in the fears of those eloquent critics who would fain persuade us that we are now enjoying the last halo of poetic radiance-that the world is arrived at that period in its history, when nothing original can be hoped for-and that our only prospect for the future consists of increasing refinement, and the decay of invention and of feeling. So melancholy an anticipation can only be sustained by shewing that the regions of imagination are completely explored, or that civilization has too much enfeebled our nature to allow the possibility of its producing minds vigorous enough to penetrate them. The first of these positions, we apprehend, is contradicted by the example of every writer who has shaped out for himself a bold and untried course -the dazzling light he has shed around his career has displayed the extent of the space which he did not occupy, and has discovered far wilder and more extensive fields, for other bards to range in. And when we reflect on the state in which Man is placed-amidst myriads of worlds with which he is unacquainted-looking forward to new stages of being and mighty elevations in his species-gifted with capacities far beyond the extent of his knowledge, and with leanings and affections far above his earthly destinies-hearing in the silence of abstraction solemn echoes from beyond the grave, which fall with deep harmony upon his soul-evidently destined for an immortality of which he knows nothing, and impelled by desires which nothing visible can satisfy-we may safely assert that there is no limit, which earthly power can determine, to the excursions of the soul beyond itself, and its burstings from the narrow shell with which it is encircled. When all we can know bears so slight a proportion to the wonders which encircle us on every side, how can boundaries be assigned to the province of those faculties which breathe and live among all that is visionary and mysterious?

Nor can we admit that the progress of the arts of life will ultimately deprive genius of its majesty and vigor. We have seen that every age, distinguished by great political changes, has been adorned with a poetry of its own-the most barbarous and the most polished times are alike conspicuous for the bards who have thrown a glory round them-monarchy and republicanism, commotion and tranquillity, pure religion and gross superstitions, have only modified the direction of that power whose principles were beyond their fluctuations. The truth is, the strong divinity of soul which produces the most marvellous imaginings, depends upon no external circumstances, and is as little to be depressed by the regu

larity of classical education, and the fear of chilling criticism, as by the darkness of the most barbarous ages. If Homer went forth 66 as the day star of the literature of Greece," Milton arose in England, after the sun of Shakspeare had burst forth in full splendor. To say that Shakspeare owes his originality to his ignorance of letters, or that Milton is great because he is learned in all the wisdom of antiquity, would be alike absurd. The excellence of both is wholly independent of their external acquirements; and it is as ridiculous to suppose that the first owes his oracular capacities to his want of acquaintance with Greek, as to maintain that the last would have been a mere controversial driveller, if he had never been acquainted with the ancient mythologies. The last writer is a powerful example of the position, which we have ventured to advance,-that originality of conception is wholly independent of external circumstances for he florished amidst a period of all others the most unfavorable, according to modern theorists, to poetical feeling-the age of puritanic republicans, of petty disputations in religion, and of civil contentions in politics-the age of fanaticism without any of the finer feelings of superstitionthe age in which devotion itself became malignant, and spiritual pride was divested of those noble emotions, and that holy enthusiasm, with which its follies were redeemed in darker periods. The poet himself was not one who lived in abstraction from the world, but who entered largely into its most feverish anxieties, who wrote on the most frivolous of its controversies, as well as on the most elevated topics of government, and the deepest questions of abstract principle. And surely if all these circumstances had no power to ruffle into the slightest wave the pure stream of his immortal conceptions, it is frivolous to suppose that if another mind should be produced, endowed with the same faculties, it would lie buried in oblivion, terrified by the frowns of critics, oppressed by a load of learning, or divested of its finest sympathies by the ardor of speculative inquiry.

Nor does the collection of men in cities, or their early engagement in the bustle of life, with all its heartlessness and folly, upon the whole diminish a taste for intellectual enjoyments. To men in general, the scenes of childhood present no peculiar beauty, till absence has rendered them sacred. Those who have always lived in the country, to whom its loveliest sounds have become familiar, are sufficiently satisfied with the beauties which surround them, without desiring to feel the fresh charms, with which poetical association has covered them. They who, on the other hand, are separated from the haunts they love, delight to recognize them in poetry, and to feel their dearest sensations revived by a glimpse of natural loveliness. The poet is to them a second home. They seek in him

for a renewal of the joy of their youth; they love him for the images he presents them of all they desire to remember; for the opening of Paradise in the wild; for that mixture of imagination, of hope, and of memory, which is the most thrilling of delicious emotions.

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And what, after all, has the loftiest poetry to do with the changes of this varying scene, with the frivolities of fashion, or the revolutions by which the inhabitants of the palace may be affected? Its most delightful melodies are mingled with the voice of nature, and its purest charms are associated with the majesty of creation. Occasionally, indeed, it has received its coloring from the manners of the age, has burst forth in songs of war and triumph, or whispered among altars and temples in the sublimest accents of devotion. But while the heavens "tell the glory of God," and the earth is pouring forth her streams, and renewing her forests in rich profusion, it cannot be dependent on those events to which it has accidentally been linked; it may always return to its native haunts, and find its kindred again with its own delicious seclusions. When society becomes too refined to relish its wild and solemn effusions, it may retire home to nature, where it will always find abundant pathy. The purest minds, by which our species is exalted, have little in common with the sensations of ordinary men, and as little dependance upon the will of princes as the breath of vulgar applause. If ambition desolates the nations, the summer evening's sigh is not the less sweet, the gentleness of heaven is still unruffled, and the regions of imagination only appear more tranquil in their beauty, and more fair, by their bright contrast to the tumults of actual existence. True poets are in this world, but they are above it. They live and breathe beyond the influence of its strife, anticipating the enjoyments of a future Paradise. The sources from which their feelings spring are far deeper than the common motives of human action; and their art flourishes most, when men most despise it; and remains firm, unimpaired, and untainted, when "the fashion of this world passeth away."

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But if all this were vain, if poetry depended upon the movements of social life, and if in the infancy of civilization alone its noblest exertions could be expected, it should be remembered that a small portion of the world only is advanced to this stage of unpoetical elevation. Mighty tracts yet remain, on which religion is just beginning to dawn; and where, in the first enthusiasm of the awakened mind, the most brilliant results may be anticipated. In territories where nature wantons in a more bountiful luxuriance, where the grandeur of scenery is more ennobling, and its loneliness more impressive, poets may well arise of kindred feeling, when the soul first begins to obtain a glimpse of its celestial destinies, when

heaven, for the first time, seems to open above, and God to dwell around it. The first breaking up of the rich and uncultivated soil must produce specimens of the most vigorous originality. The morning of Western glory must be ushered in by some stars of peculiar brightness. Even while we are sending forth from this sanctuary of the world, as from an exhaustless fountain, those streams of the water of life which must refresh those awful solitudes, we may witness as the first-fruits of our charity, fresh regions of imagination explored, and new riches discovered in the capacities of our species. There, in the freshness of new-born vigor, Wordsworths may hold mysterious converse with the oracles of nature; Miltons range among shadowy worlds of their delighted creation; and Shakspeares develope all the varieties of the heart, and cover them with unearthly loveliness, while untutored tribes listen to them with strange rapture. The prospect seems to swim with an imaginative radiance, too bright to permit us steadily to contemplate it. Surely the very hope of such a consummation, however dim and distant, is sufficient to forbid us to despair of the future triumphs of genius; and to arm us against the eloquence that would check all our noblest impulses, by making us believe that the world is too old to be any longer romantic.

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